It wasn’t a joke. Columnist Jimmy Breslin signed on as his running mate, vying to be City Council president.

Their ideas? “I’m running on a platform of ‘Free Huey Newton and floridation,” Mailer told a crowd at the Village Gate. “We’ll have compulsory free love in those neighborhoods that vote for it, and compulsory attendance in church on Sunday in those that vote for that.”

They also advocated that New York City become the 51st state (which wasn’t a novel idea). They pledged the construction of a monorail, a ban on private cars in Manhattan, and monthly vehicle-free Sundays.

When primary day came, Mailer ended up fourth out of five candidates—and John Lindsay won reelection that November.

I still have a Mailer/Breslin button which I got when they were running for office and wore it to Mailer’s talk at Hofstra and again at his talk at LeFrak center at Queens College shortly before he died. He saw it and was shocked (or at least ‘surprised’) and said “You still have that old thing” and seemed very pleased. I am not sure what I will do with it. Leave it to my sons, donate it to a museum, sell it, loan it out for exhibitions. Is it rare? Sombody let me know.

Damnit, I also had a button, it was red with black lettering reading Mailer/Breslin. I had it with a stack of other hippie/pacifist buttons I’d saved over the years, the majority from the 60s-70s. Unfortunately, they were all left behind when I had my stroke and moved out of the Lower East Side, now commercialized forever. Oh well, c’est la vie…

Someone donated 100s of buttons last week to Housing Works on Montague Street last weekend. Most from lefty marches and causes of the last 50 years. I bought six and one was a Mailer/Breslin button. Also got one from the levitation of the Pentagon (attempted!)